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Yesterday my oldest son and I handed my camera back and forth taking picture after picture, alternating the perspective from him to me. Little in life makes my heart warm more than learning the art of photography along side my sons.

As we gleefully continued this activity, I asked him “What is your story? Remember that the you're photographing, think about the story are you telling.”

He turned to me and replied, “We're creating this story together, Mom. What story are you telling?”

This kid. All kids. So darn wise. Six and telling me truth after truth.

Yes, of course. That is brilliant.

My son enjoys story telling. We try to find ways to do this activity together. Here are a few ideas for you to consider in your family.

Storytelling with Older Children

Orally tell stories while snuggling up on the couch, or winding down for the day. No props. No writing tools. Simply your voices.

Back and forth storytelling is loads of fun! My sister and I used to do this activity when we were younger. She would write a sentence then I would write a sentence. The twists and turns of a joint story never cease to surprise me.

In silence storytelling simply means using your ears, your eyes, your nose, and your hands. Go on a hike and soak it all in. Take a moment to stop and reflect without vocalizing your thoughts. Write your stories of that moment together, then share at a later point.

Journal storytelling is lovely and personal. To make journaling a family activity, my idea is to write a page in a journal and then leave it for my son to write the next page, connecting his words with my words. The next page can be written the same day, week, or even a month later. There is no time limit.

Storytelling through drawing is a natural activity for my sons but not so much for me. So, I use this activity as an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and get creative. I will admit that this one is my least favorite, mainly because my son always sweetly asks me, “Mom, what is that you're drawing?” or encourages me by saying, “Oh, mom, that's really great.”

Take a chapter from a favorite book and rewrite it. We read lots of chapter books out loud. I love to ask my son which character is his favorite and how he would have changed the story (or what he believes might come next). So, I proposed that we rewrite one of his favorite stories. He is still trying to decide but I will let you know if I have to come up with some alternative to the Trojan War. I am going to need all the help I can get.

Tell a story with images. I opened this post with this idea. I loved sitting with my son at the computer reviewing all the photos we had taken together throughout the afternoon. He was proud of his work explaining the “angle” of each photo.

The art of oral story telling seems to be lost these days. I have fond, warm memories of story telling with my grandparents. My grandparents didn't necessarily make up stories, but they would tell me about their childhood and all the many days before my time. I was always fascinated by the tales. I long for the same stories for my sons' to experience.

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

Here are a few ways to integrate story telling into your outdoor time:

Pick a tree and tell it's story

Pick three to five objects or sights you see along the path and bring them together in a story or poem

Sing a song about the wild life and plant life around you

Personify wildlife around you. Choose a bird or a bug, give it a name and tell its story

Choose a plant and tell the story of how it grew from a seed

Simply tell a story about anything you or your child so desires. Let your child lead the story telling.

I hope that we inspired you today! Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this post, here are a few others on Storytelling with Kids.

I love the outdoors and particularly love exploring the outdoors with my sons. The fresh air is so motivating. I am often inspired by children's books. Rocket Writes a Story is one example. Not only am I'm impressed with the way the text introduces children to writing in a simple, lovely way, I am also equally impressed by the way the story brings in a muse and brings in nature to help Rocket develop his story.

I'm lucky. My sons love the outdoors. They ask to go on nature walks. So we've been going on many nature walks lately. As we walk I throw out words of things that we're seeing and that we're experiencing on the walk. Sometimes we make poems and songs up on the spot. Sometimes I tell my son that I'm making mental notes of those words so that we can create a story from them when we get home.

This activity is so hands on and so inspiring for adults and for children. The ability to get outdoors and to create is unfortunately more unique today than it was when (and where) I grew up. I'd like to maintain that excitement, that inspiration and that smell of fresh air as long as possible in our family's life. You know the feeling I'm talking about..you've experienced it and it feels good.

I read the most adorable book this week with my son. He is three years old and was captivated with the words and the story. I loved what Doors in the Air ignited in him. I love how this book took him for a ride and then more. Imagination in children is a wonderful thing to embrace for a moment and for a lifetime. Nurture it and love it. See where it goes. I believe that as parents we should light up that “something” in our children and then let them go to explore the world. That is why I truly fell in love with this week's theme for MemeTales Readathon 2012: Imagination. What a grand topic and one that is accessible to all of us.

We read all the books for this week's theme. Did I mention that these featured books are FREE? Scroll down and click on the book image. You and your child can read them online, on your ipad, on the iphone, etc. The very cool part too is that with every person who joins the Readathon read there is a meal donated to hungry kids via foodforeducation.org? Pretty amazing stuff going on too. 4,300 meals donated. 42,000+ books read by young children.

Here is a really wonderful activity we did along side these books and this theme. There is a FREE printable* included too. So, go crazy!

Montessori Print Shop offers these wonderful Imagine Story Cards instructions included in the printable.

These printable are great but you can also do this activity by collecting images of whatever you would like – you can make it a theme around a time of year, a holiday, a trip or a country. There are twelve images in this printable set to get you started on an activity. The images include scenarios with children and families.

Show your child the images and ask him what they think of the image.

How are these people feeling?

Why do you think they feel that way?

Who do you think is in this picture?

Why was this picture taken?

Where do you think this picture was taken?

…and so on…let the child's imagination take off. Give them the chance to explore and imagine the story behind the image.

Thank you for choosing to read this post today.

Warmly,

Marnie

*There are loads of great FREE downloads on Montessori Print Shop. Check them out!

Telling a story with a bag is a wonderful and easy storytelling with kids activity! I had these wonderful mini canvas bags left over from an Earth Day Play Date we hosted back in March. I pulled a few from a storage container this morning while looking for something totally different. I brought the bags upstairs thinking they might be fun to decorate again (like we did at the Play Date). Our 3 year old asked immediately, “What's that in your hand, mama?”. He promptly grabbed the bag from me and began to fill it with various items around his play area.

Storytelling Language Activity with Kids

Language Activity Materials

Our Approach

Decorate the bag or box beforehand if you want to add on an activity.

Grab the bag or box and filled it with several objects – a lemon, a pair of Melissa and Doug Sunny Patch Binoculars, a match box dump truck, a giraffe figurine and a ladybug. You don't need many to start the adventure.

Sit with your child, let him explore and discover the object.

Have him identify and talk about the objects. Ask, encourage and guide him to identify the objects.

Once done identifying the objects, pick up one object, in our case, the giraffe, and begin your story, “There once was a giraffe who drove a dump truck…” and your child will catch on…our son took it from the giraffe and grabbed the ladybug and shrieked, “and he was looking for ladybugs!!!”

Language Development Tips

Play “ping pong” with your words and soon your child will begin incorporating other objects within arms reach to create a story, in our case, involving ladybugs climbing a mountain (aka “nesting blocks”) and dodging hot lava (aka “orange and black pom poms”). You can always encourage this part too.

Allow your child to collect objects for the next round of storytelling

Sit back, watch your child and enjoy the story

Let your child go where he needs and wants to go with his story. There are no limits.

My son will be 3 in July. His imagination is running wild. I love it but it is tough to keep up with his stories, imagination and storytelling.Honestly, storytelling is not something that comes easy to me. I have always had to work at telling stories. I thank my son for motivating me to become a better storyteller.

We truly enjoy reading in our home but I have learned that storytelling is so important in a child's development even beyond early literacy. Storytelling triggers extremely valuable high level literacy skills such as comprehension and, perhaps more importantly, open ended learning and development. I love this post on Mommy Labs on the importance of storytelling. In any event, here are a few ways we've integrated imaginary play and storytelling into our home.

Storytelling for Children & Parents

Audio Books
We love them, play them in our home and in the car non-stop. Audible.com and our local library for cds are our one stop shop for these experiences. At home one thing I've tried to do is act out the story with my boy. Seriously tons of fun! One of my favorites is Blueberries for Sal and Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel. Plus every Magic School Bus book that exists.

Train Table
We love trains. This train table is where the story telling all started for us. I typically leave my son alone to create his own stories by playing independently using ‘private speech.'

Taking Turns
My son and I have gotten into the habit of telling stories together. He will say a sentence like, ‘why hello there octopus. It is nice to meet you. Said the crab,' and I will say, ‘did you see those snorkelers today? I thought they were going to hug Mr. Sea turtle! Said the crab.' Easy.

Weather Cards
One very spontaneous story telling activity we've done recently happened when we were doing our day of the week and weather chart. We downloaded these weather cards for FREE from Montessori Print Shop. One particular day, as my was searching for the ‘rainy' card, he started to place each weather card on the magnetic board and began to tell stories with the weather card. It was awesome . Weather is dramatic. Weather I can do. We told stories about a hail storm followed by a beautiful rainbow on a cool winter day. Lovely. Heart melts lovely.

Buddy Reading
We “Buddy Read”, a commonly used early literacy approach within Tools of the Mind. I'll read a book and he'll ‘read' a book. Then I'll ask him to read a book to me.

What do you see?
When we're jumping from raft to raft (pillow to pillow) in the middle of the sea (living room rug), we ask one another “what do you see?” Often my son will answer with one word like “Octopus!” So I'll ask what the octopus is doing, and then when he asks me “What do you see, Mama?” I'll be more descriptive and dramatic, holding up my binoculars and exclaiming I see a pirate ship with a skull flag and sharks lurking all around it. You get it.

Our Own Song Lyrics
My son loves to make up songs on his own but also use the tune of a well known song and change up the lyrics. For example with “Down By The Station” he might say, “Down by the Creek early in the morning see the little salmon swimming around…”

Here are a few amazing Storytelling activities and ideas courtesy of fellow talented bloggers: